RECENT ARRIVALS

By George B. Prescott

New York: Appleton and Company, 1885, 1888. Later printings. Cloth. Very good/none as issued. Mixed set with continuous pagination in publishers original brown cloth. In 2 volumes. Vol. I: xii, [5] -602, [i]-iii, [3] pages. Vol. 2: viii, [603] -1120, [9-tables] , [I-blank], [i]-ii pages . 8vo. Original brown publisher's cloth with uniform spine designs but different decorations in blind. With several old institutional stamps on the title page and the Dibner Institute stamp on the front pastedown endpapers (properly withdrawn). Wear and bumping to the corners. Wear to head and tail of both spines. Binding sound with one signature a bit proud in volume 1. Both volumes are copyrighted 1884, but Vol. l (a gift of Bern Dibner) is the 7th edition dated 1888 and Vol. 2 (a gift of IBM) is the sixth edition dated 1885. Ad for Prescotts latest works in back matter, including Bells Electric Speaking Telephone. Very Good. See Sterling and Shiers History of Telecommunications Technology, An Annotated Bibliography, **6-059 (which notes the 1877, 1881, and 1885 editions) . Wheeler Gift Catalogue, I, 2045 (referencing 1877 first edition) "Comprehensive, descriptive treatise," Cyclopaedia of American Biography V/108. A continuation of Prescott's well regarded "History, Theory, and Practice of the Electric Telegraph" (first published in 1860, and with several editions through 1866). "Electricity and the Electric Telegraph spends "the first 280 pages or so on electricity in general, while the rest focuses on the telegraph." It went through many editions, with 1877 being the first. George Bartlett Prescott was well positioned to write such a book. He was a manager of telegraph offices from 1847-1858, then Superintendent of the American and in 1866 of the Western Union telegraph companies' lines, and in 1869 electrician of the Western Union telegraph company. He was also electrician of the International Ocean Telegraph Company from 1873 to 1880, and later travelled overseas to review the technologies being used there. He later rose to executive and board positions in several companies including the Bell telephone company of Philadelphia. He also had several related patents, and wrote numerous articles for the technical press as well as several books." --- Kuenzig Books

By Erwin Chargaff

Boston: Birkhäuser, 1986. First Edition, First Printing. Cloth. Fine/fine. A fine first edition, first printing in a fine dust jacket. As new. Dust jacket now protected in a clear, removable, archival cover. viii, 261 pp. Octavo, 5 3/4 x 8 1/2 inches tall. Erwin Chargaff (11 August 1905  20 June 2002) was an Austro-Hungarian biochemist that immigrated to the United States during the Nazi era and was a professor of biochemistry at Columbia University medical school. Through careful experimentation, Chargaff discovered two rules that helped lead to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. The first rule was that in DNA the number of guanine units is equal to the number of cytosine units, and the number of adenine units is equal to the number of thymine units. This hinted at the base pair makeup of DNA. The second rule was that the relative amounts of guanine, cytosine, adenine and thymine bases vary from one species to another. This hinted that DNA rather than protein could be the genetic material. -- wikipedia

By Henry Guerlac

Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981. First Edition, First Printing. Cloth. Near fine/fine. A very near fine first edition in a fine dust jacket. Buckram boards. Blue endpepers with price sticker of FFE. Half title page has dog-ear fold. Binding is sturdy, square and tight. Text clean and bright.169 pp. including index. Octavo, 6 3/4 x 9 3/4 inches tall. Henry Edward Guerlac (1910-1982) graduated from Cornell University in 1932, received a master's degree in biochemistry from Cornell in 1933, and a doctorate in European history from Harvard University in 1941. Before joining the Cornell faculty in 1946, he taught at Harvard and the University of Wisconsin, and for three years was the historian for the Radiation Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1964, he was named Goldwin Smith Professor of the History of Science and in 1970 he became director of the Society for the Humanities at Cornell. Guerlac was awarded the George Sarton Medal by the History of Science Society in 1973, was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1978, and in 1982 was named Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by the French government.Guerlac's books include Science in Western Civilization, Newton on the Continent, and Lavoisier: The Crucial Year, for which he received the Pfizer Prize in 1959. At the time of his death Professor Guerlac was completing an annotated edition of Newton's Opticks, which was first published in 1704. --- Cornell University

By Franklin M. Harold

New York: W.H. Freeman & Company, 1986. First Edition, First Printing. Glossy pictorial cover. Fine/none as issued. A very near fine first edition, first printing. Glossy pictorial boards. Binding is tight, sturdy and square. Only flaw is the previous owner's name neatly stamped on half-title. Text is clean and bright. Illustrated throughout with drawings, photos, charts and graphs. xviii, 577 pp. including index. Octavo, 7 1/2 inches x 9 1/2 inches tall. As an undergraduate, I searched in vain for a book that would expand my knowledge of biochemistry without simultaneously diminishing my enthusiasm for the subject. Subsequently, such books have been written, Watsons Molecular Biology of the Gene being an outstanding example. Harolds book is the equivalent for those interested in any aspect of bioenergetics. He points out that bioenergetics has recently attained a degree of integration comparable to that ofmolecular genetics, and that the principle of energy coupling by ion currents, given a clear and general expression in Mitchells chemiosmotic hypothesis, together with the Huxleys slidingfilament model of muscle contraction, has provided the possibility of giving a reasonably coherent account of how cells generate useful energy and perform work. That is the object of this book which is chiefly addressed to students and researchers in biochemistry, physiology, microbiology and cell biology who seek the wider perspective on their particular subject that may come from an appreciationof biological energetics. I consider that this book has achieved its object. It has done so by way of its content, structure, excellent quality of illustration and, most of all, by the clarity of thought and presentation of its author. On the whole, explanations of experiments and ideas are given more comprehensive treatment than is possible in general textbooks or learned reviews and it is unlikely that a student will need to go elsewhere for a fuller explanation; it is all here, written in a stimulating, lucid style. One (small) exception is the experimental evidence for the Qcycle, where Harold says that one can intuitivelywork out how the configuration of a Q-cycle explains the peculiar redox interplay between cytochrome cl and b-566. Intuition, however, comes from experience of related phenomena (and experiments) and is not a reliable guide when trying to understand bioenergetics and, on the whole, Harold provides a superb text to help us in avoiding it. The lists of references (with titles) at the end of each chapter are excellent, but there is no contents list, which, together with the limited index makes the book inconvenient for rapid reference. A more important flaw is the lack of information about structures. Other texts must be consulted to find the structure of ATP, NAD, FAD, haem, ferredoxin, phospholipids, proteins, etc. There is no doubt that many of the remaining questions of bioenergetics await, for their answer, a better understanding of the relationship between structure and function of the electron transport and proton-translocating proteins. It would be a pity if such matters were to be disclaimed as irrelevant by those whose enthusiasm for bioenergetics is stimulated by this book. ... --- Chris Anthony, FEBS Letters 1987

By René Dubos

New York: The Rockefeller University Press, 1978. Second Printing. Cloth. Near fine/near fine. About fine second printing in a fine dust jacket. Blue cloth boards with silver foil facsimile signature on front cover and silver foil titling on spine. Binding is sturdy, square and tight. Previous owner's name double stamped on first free end paper, otherwise as new. Text clean and bright. Unclipped, original dust jacket is about fine with mild shelfwear, no tears or chips. 238 pp. including index. Octavo 6 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches tall. Oswald Theodore Avery is little known outside of the scientific community. Yet, this extraordinary man, here brought vividly to life by a perceptive friend and sophisticated scientific colleague, was a monumental force in the development of medical research in the United States. Even among scientists, Avery is known chiefly as the senior author of a paper published in 1944 that identified DNA as the purveyor of genetic information. Two things make this highly personalized biography a landmark volume. First, its technical chapters clarify the philosophical concepts that lie behind today's understanding of the immunology of bacterial infection. Second, not a single existing textbook has ever described the laborious methods by which the men in Avery's laboratory discovered the genetic import of DNA. This is the story of a man and a place that were uniquely suited to each otherO.T. Avery and The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. It is also the story of a charming, forceful, and enigmatic personalitya man whose character imposed a lasting influence on his associates and on the direction of scientific investigation throughout the world. And, like any good narrative, the story has its heroes and its villains, its disappointments and its triumphs. Only a person with the expertise, insight, and sensitivity of a René Dubos could have combined the science, the times, and the man with such penetration". -- Dust jacket

By William L. Jolly

Berkeley: University of California, 1987. First Edition. Cloth. Fine/none as issued. About fine assumed first edition, "Distributed by the College of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley" without an ISBN (presumably printed for a limited audience). Blue cloth boards with gold foil stamping of a cupola and title on cover and gold foil stamping on spine. Binding is sturdy, square and tight. Previous owner's name neatly stamped on FFE, otherwise as new. Text clean and bright. Laid in is a fine alumnae solicitation with historic photos from Berkeley, printed in 1997. Illustrated with b/w photo plates. ix, 292 pp. including index. Octavo, 6 x 9 1/4 inches tall. William Lee Jolly, professor of chemistry at UC Berkeley, whose work helped facilitate the renaissance of inorganic chemistry in the United States during the middle of the 20th century...Jolly worked as a group leader at the newly formed Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, CA, from 1953-55. There he helped to devise unusual forms of lithium deuteride and lithium tritide for use in the testing of thermonuclear devices. He joined the Berkeley faculty in 1955 and began his career teaching freshman chemistry and inorganic chemistry classes. During the 1950s and 1960s, he established courses, seminars and research programs in inorganic chemistry that have flourished to the present. Jolly wrote more than 300 articles in leading scientific journals and wrote or edited numerous books, including Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry, The Synthesis and Characterization of Inorganic Compounds and, in 1987, From Retorts to Lasers: The Story of Chemistry at Berkeley. -- author's obituary

By Stuart Gibbard

Ipswitch, UK: Old Pond Publishing, 1998. First Edition. Glossy pictorial cover. Very good +. A very good plus first edition. Glossy pictorial boards with a thin, short scratch on front cover on close inspection. Tractor end papers. Previous owner's information inked on front pastedown. Binding is sturdy and square. Pages unmarked. 192 pp. Quarto, 8 1/2 x 11 inches tall. All proceeds from this sale go to The Shalom Free Clinic, providing healthcare services to the uninsured and underinsured in Chico, California.

By Don Macmillan; Russell Jones

St. Joseph. MI: American Society of Agricultural Engineers, 1998. Cloth. Near fine/near fine. A near fine copy in a near fine dust jacket. Brown cloth boards with gold title stamping on cover and spine. Previous owner's name inked on front end paper and on dust jacket cover. Binding is sturdy and square. original ISBN label on rear of dust jacket. Dust jacket now protected in a clear, removable, archival cover. Illustrated throughout with photos and drawings. Includes an appendix of specifications for models and years, very useful for identifying tractors. 391 pp. Quarto, 8 1/2 inches x 11 inches tall. All proceeds from this sale go to The Shalom Free Clinic, providing healthcare services to the uninsured and underinsured in Chico, California.